FEI: Three And Out

by Brian Fremeau

After a few tumultuous weeks to start the season, last weekend played out mostly as expected. Of course, there was plenty of drama on the way. There were thrilling overtime victories from Michigan State and Auburn and another dozen games decided by a single score. Texas A&M and Michigan survived what would have been shocking upset bids from lowly Florida International and Massachusetts. And the head-to-head matchups between FEI top 30 foes (Georgia-Arkansas, Iowa-Arizona, Georgia Tech-North Carolina, Texas-Texas Tech) were all decided on the final possessions.

There is a new No. 1 team in FEI and a few shake-ups throughout the ratings. But the shift for most teams had less to do with specific results from last weekend and more to do with the continued devaluation of projected data. Many of the changes are subtle -- the ACC teams that are clearly overrated are starting to drift down the rankings -- but there have been a few major FEI moves.

The teams that have outperformed their initial projections most notably are South Carolina, Stanford, Nevada, and Michigan. That group is currently ranked an average of 25 spots better than initially projected, and their current FEI ratings are an average of .62 standard deviations above their projected value. (In the case of the Wolverines, remember that FEI disregards FCS results, and Michigan's dominant win over Connecticut and road victory at Notre Dame were both unexpectedly efficient performances). On the flip side, BYU, Connecticut, and Wake Forest are the biggest underachievers to date relative to their projected value.

And at the top, Alabama takes over the No. 1 position following a crushing win over Duke. The Crimson Tide have impressed each week and appear to have overcome personnel losses from last season's championship squad without missing a beat. That said, Alabama's schedule isn't getting any easier -- according to FEI, they're about to embark on a difficult stretch. The Crimson Tide will face five current FEI top 20 teams in their final nine games, starting with a trip to Arkansas this weekend. Based on projected win expectations, Alabama is only expected to go 6-2 against FBS opponents down the stretch (7-2 with the inclusion of their game against FCS Georgia State). As described in last week's ESPN Insider piece, a multiple-loss national championship game participant is a very real possibility in 2010.

Three and Out

I've received several requests to provide a bit more insight into the raw drive efficiency data that goes into the formula for FEI. Since we're still a few weeks away from debuting this year's Offensive and Defensive FEI data, I thought it might be interesting to take different slices each week of the raw numbers themselves. I'm calling this section "Three and Out," a set of three tables each week ranking the top teams, offensively and defensively, according to various drive splits.

This will certainly be a recurring series in this space, if not a weekly one. The idea isn't necessarily to unearth new groundbreaking drive metrics (though it might). And due to sample size, especially early in the season, we may only be able to draw general conclusions. But I'm openly soliciting feedback here on drive splits that may be of interest to you. The most popular splits may become permanent weekly data tables, or I may simply use this space to dig up quirks and peculiarities in team performances.

Let's get to it. All data provided in these tables includes only FBS vs. FBS non-garbage possessions. None of these numbers are adjusted for the strength of the opposition faced.

Three and Out Percentage

Offensive Leaders

Defensive Leaders

Team

Threeand Out

OffPoss

Pct.

Team

Threeand Out

DefPoss

Pct.

Arizona State

0

8

.000

Texas

21

35

.600

Boise State

1

21

.048

South Carolina

9

16

.563

Idaho

1

20

.050

Stanford

9

16

.563

Oregon

1

18

.056

Alabama

13

26

.500

UTEP

1

18

.056

Oklahoma State

18

38

.474

Kentucky

2

29

.069

Boston College

5

11

.455

Alabama

2

25

.080

Idaho

8

18

.444

Pittsburgh

1

12

.083

Western Michigan

12

27

.444

TCU

2

18

.111

Arkansas

10

23

.435

South Carolina

2

18

.111

Boise State

9

21

.429

What better way to start the "Three and Out" series than with three-and-outs? Officially, these are possessions that lasted three plays or fewer that did not result in a touchdown and concluded fewer than 10 yards from starting field position. Generally speaking, teams that limit three-and-outs also have strong offensive efficiency, but there is not a direct relationship between the two metrics.

In 2009, the Florida Gators led the nation offensively, only going three-and-out on 13.7 percent of their possessions. TCU led the nation defensively, forcing three and outs on 49.3 percent of its opponent's possessions.

Percentage of Available Yards

Offensive Leaders

Defensive Leaders

Team

AvailYards

Yards

Pct.

Team

AvailYards

Yards

Pct.

Indiana

510

471

.924

Boston College

739

122

.165

Nevada

1222

948

.776

Oregon

1611

356

.221

Alabama

1685

1275

.757

Texas

2629

593

.226

Stanford

915

691

.755

Stanford

1201

290

.241

Oregon

1125

818

.727

Ohio State

2177

538

.247

Navy

1416

986

.696

Texas A&M

1866

479

.257

Kentucky

1840

1270

.690

Florida International

2201

566

.257

UTEP

1208

828

.685

Rutgers

1045

277

.265

TCU

1299

871

.671

Arizona

1647

468

.284

Boise State

1468

945

.644

LSU

2564

749

.292

Available yards* are calculated based on total starting field position over the course of every non-garbage possession. A sequence of three drives begun at a team's own 10-yard line, its own 30-yard line, and the opponent's 45-yard line would have a total of 205 available yards (90+70+45=205). The table above represents the total field position gained, not necessarily the box score yardage recorded (i.e. a team's penalties count against its yardage).

In 2009, Houston's offense led the nation, accumulating 65 percent of its available yards on the season. Defensively, TCU led the nation, allowing only 24.1 percent of available yards.

*The available yards metric was first tracked and introduced to me by my friend Jay Barry of the now defunct Blue-Gray Sky Notre Dame blog. Other variations on the same theme have appeared on other college team blogs since.

Percentage of Explosive Drives

Offensive Leaders

Defensive Leaders

Team

Expl.Drives

OffPoss

Pct.

Team

Expl.Drives

DefPoss

Pct.

Alabama

12

25

.480

Ohio State

0

30

.000

Nebraska

11

29

.379

Mississippi State

0

27

.000

Oregon

6

18

.333

Boston College

0

11

.000

Iowa

7

22

.318

Central Florida

0

25

.000

Kentucky

9

29

.310

Vanderbilt

1

37

.027

Arkansas

7

23

.304

Texas A&M

1

31

.032

Oklahoma State

11

37

.297

Utah

1

30

.033

Nevada

5

17

.294

Alabama

1

26

.038

Central Michigan

6

21

.286

Middle Tennessee

1

24

.042

Michigan State

10

37

.270

Fresno State

1

24

.042

Explosive drives here represent any drive in which the average gained per play was greater than 10 yards. So a drive that covered 70 yards in 6 plays would be considered "explosive" (70/6 = 11.7 yards per play), and one that covered 70 yards in 9 plays would not (70/9 = 7.8 yards per play).

Arkansas ranked first offensively in 2009 by this metric, producing an explosive drive on 23.3 percent of its possessions. Defensively, Nebraska led the nation allowing an explosive drive on only 2.5 percent of its opponents' possessions.

Interested in seeing more "Three and Out" tables in future FEI columns? Please suggest any other drive splits that might interest you by adding a comment below or sending me an e-mail or a tweet, and I'll try to include as many suggestions as possible.

FEI Week 3 Top 25

The principles of the Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) can be found here. FEI rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. FEI is drive-based, not play-by-play based, and it is specifically engineered to measure the college game.

FEI is the opponent-adjusted value of Game Efficiency (GE), a measurement of the success rate of a team scoring and preventing opponent scoring throughout the non-garbage-time possessions of a game. FEI represents a team's efficiency value over average. Strength of Schedule (SOS) is calculated as the likelihood that an "elite team" (two standard deviations above average) would win every game on the given team's schedule to date. SOS listed here includes future games scheduled.

Mean Wins (FBS MW) represent the average total games a team with the given FEI rating should expect to win against its complete schedule of FBS opponents. Remaining Mean Wins (FBS RMW) represent the average expected team wins for games scheduled but not yet played.

Only games between FBS teams are considered in the FEI calculations. Since limited data is available in the early part of the season, preseason projections are factored into the current ratings. The weight given to projected data will be reduced each week until Week 7, when it will be eliminated entirely. Offensive and defensive FEI ratings will also debut in Week 7. The FEI ratings published here are a function of the results of games played through September 18.

FEI ratings for all 120 FBS teams are now listed in the stats page section of FootballOutsiders.com. Click here for current ratings; the pull-down menu in the stats section directs you to 2007 through 2009 ratings.

The table here includes any drive that averaged at least ten yards of field position gained per play, regardless of the outcome of that drive. A 42 yard gain, two 0-yard rushes and an interception would qualify as a 4-play "explosive" drive under this definition. (The outcome and distribution of success are obviously relevant to the efficiency of the offense. This table is more of a record of each team's frequency of drives that feature one or more explosive plays).

Good question, too. If you're interested in seeing only those explosive drives that result in touchdowns (or scores of any kind), that's the kind of thing I'm happy to provide as requested.

What about some sort of "late game efficiency" table, measuring either explosiveness or available yards percentage during drives in the fourth quarter where the team was down by a score. I'm probably getting too narrow-minded here, especially since our eyes should already be pretty good at telling us which teams are capable of coming back in the final minutes.

Maybe a table showing the number of drives that resulted in points while the team was down by less than a score. Or number of game-tying or go-ahead drives when down by a score, 4th quarter or otherwise.

Could an "explosive" drive lead to a concussion that would make a person think the Texas/Texas Tech game was "decided on the final possession?"(lol). Some confusion there I think BF...Texas scored with 9:26 left to go up 24-14. Both teams had the ball a few times after that...

Actually, three and outs are not an explicit component of the FEI ratings. My intention for providing "more insight into the drive efficiency data" in these tables and others in future FEI columns is to parse the raw drive data down in other unique ways.

Collectively, three-and-outs, percentage of available yards, and many other perspectives on raw drive data are all contributing factors to an individual team's Game Efficiency, Offensive/Defensive Efficiency, etc. But they aren't factored individually into FEI.

Alabama and Florida are the 2 best teams according to his ratings, but they're only projected to get to 10 wins. That means the SEC champ could easily be the best team in the country, but have too many losses to get in the top 2 BCS spots. The current rankings do agree with the SEC's self-impression: there are a lot of excellent teams (5 of the top 12) that will beat up on each other before the end of the year.

What mm said. It will be very interesting if we are debating the relative merits of a two-loss SEC champ and an undefeated Boise State and/or TCU at season's end. Not just FEI, but I think the polls will struggle with it as well.